Sorry I have been gone so long. Have been updating our social sites, attending webinars, and basically just been working on the business.

So I retract what I said a couple months ago about lawn mowing. We have decided that we are not going to bring it back in house. In fact, we are going to totally do away with it all together at the end of the season.

Just in case anybody missed it. We currently sub out our lawn mowing accounts to another company. We have done so going on almost four years. We were thinking about getting back into the mowing again, and bringing it back in house. But after meetings (over and over again), we have decided to totally do away with mowing.

We have already let go of some of our accounts today, while others that are on flat monthly rates will stay on until the end of the season. Those that pre-paid, only three clients, they will stay on until their pre-payment contract ends. Two of them end in 2013, and one ends in 2015. We will stay have our subs maintain all of the accounts until the end too.

This wasn't an easier decision to make. Just two months ago we were ready to bring back mowing in house, but after going over our budget, and the cost of bringing back in house, we thought that it wasn't the best thing for the business.

Steve

03-06-2012, 03:21 PM

Troy,

Very fascinating! Was there something that finally made you decide to go that route or was it just a build up of issues?

Have been updating our social sites, attending webinars, and basically just been working on the business.

What has been your view on your social sites? Have you found them to be effective?

Also did any of the webinars stand out?

TiedemanLLC

03-06-2012, 03:56 PM

Troy,

Very fascinating! Was there something that finally made you decide to go that route or was it just a build up of issues?

What has been your view on your social sites? Have you found them to be effective?

Also did any of the webinars stand out?

We really weighed in the pros and cons of the cost of setting up the lawn maintenance division again and we concluded that it would be at least two years before we broke even.

We also thought more about the scheduling efforts, equipment maintenance, profit margin, and just decided we need to shrink down our services to only a limit number. We need to streamline ideas, cut back on costs, and stop trying to the be "walmart" to our clients. We need to stop being the one stop shop. By cutting back on our services, we reduce our inventory, make scheduling easier, reduce costs, can generate faster estimates, make the pricing structure simple and fast, while also having productive service routes.

Steve

03-07-2012, 11:20 AM

Very neat! As you look ahead do you find you would like to specialize further in your services or are you feeling fine where you are at now?

TiedemanLLC

03-07-2012, 12:32 PM

Very neat! As you look ahead do you find you would like to specialize further in your services or are you feeling fine where you are at now?

We have already been thinking of only offering a selective service. But right now for this year, we are just going to try out our new approach and then go from there.

I guess you could say we are having a bit of an identity issue, and we are just trying to find that perfect mold that fits us. We have been all over the map the last 13 years, lighting, hardscapes, mowing, installation, etc. We try them out for a few years, and realize that it's not our fit. We can't see whether something fits us unless we at least try it out.